THE ANGLO-SAXON MODEL--OTHERWISE KNOWN AS WORK

As the suburbs burn, airy-fairy Chirac should think back to the Iron Lady (Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, November 10th, 2005)

The second set of responses may sound insensitive and cynical, but is actually more effective in helping the truly underprivileged and oppressed. This is simply to ignore events such as these riots, at least as a social policy challenge. To “tough it out” was essentially what Margaret Thatcher did in 1981 after race riots in Toxteth, a suburb of Liverpool, were followed by copycat disturbances all over the country —and an outbreak national of soul-searching very similar to the one in France today. But the Government did next to nothing and after two weeks or so the violence simply died out —and was never repeated.

Why was Mrs Thatcher able to ignore the social unrest of the early 1980s? The riots of 1981 marked the low point of the worst economic depression that Britain had experienced since the 1930s. From the summer of 1981 onwards, the British economy began to bounce back. Year-on-year GDP growth recovered from a nightmarish minus 4 per cent in early 1981 to 2.5 per cent a year later and almost 5 per cent by late 1983.

While unemployment went on rising until the mid-1980s, the worst of the shake-out was over and for many people, including the poor and marginalised racial minorities, the rapid growth of the economy, which averaged an unprecedented 3.6 per cent in the seven years following the Toxteth riots, provided new economic opportunities and therefore hope.

In other words, strong economic growth offers the most reliable solution to social alienation —and, contrary to the presumptions of most sociologists and politicians, economic growth helps the poor and the marginalised much more than the rich. The people who are marginalised are the first to lose their jobs in times of economic hardship. For the permanently jobless who depend entirely on welfare, economic recession is often even worse, since shortfalls in tax revenues often trigger benefit cuts. The converse, however, is that the poor and marginalised are quickest to feel the benefit of even a small improvement. While middle-class professionals may not even detect the difference between a 1 per cent and a 2 per cent growth rate, for an unskilled teenager or an immigrant building labourer, that one percentage point can spell the difference between opportunity and utter despair.

If President Chirac and his ministers had any sense, therefore, they would stop philosophising about the ideals of the French Revolution and would focus instead on the practical policies required to accelerate the economy’’s growth rate. In doing this, they could hardly do better than recall the policies that pulled Britain out of the terrible recession of 1979-81.

They also might want to work a bit on their public relations.